Iraq's Tariq Aziz Has Months to Live, Must Be Freed From Prison, Son Says

By Massoud A Derhally and Caroline Alexander -
Jan 7, 2011

Saddam Hussein’s deputy and former
Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, may die within months and
should be freed from prison “as a humanitarian gesture,” his
eldest son said.

“He won’t survive more than two to three months,” Ziad
Tariq Aziz said of his father in a phone interview today from
Amman, Jordan. The 74-year-old has had three strokes in the
eight years he has been in prison and can no longer speak or
walk, his son said. The family has sent medicine to his Baghdad
jail “but no one knows if he took it or not,” he added.

In October, a court set up to try senior members of the
former Baathist regime condemned Aziz to death “for the
persecution of Islamic parties,” including the Shiite Muslim
Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. President Jalal Talabani has refused to sign the order, joining the Vatican,
Russia and Greece, along with the United Nations and the
European Union, in objecting to the sentence, given Aziz’s age
and health.

At least eight other senior Baathists are being held in Iraq. Their fate remains one of the most delicate issues facing
al-Maliki’s government, which has pledged to heal sectarian
rifts between Shiite Muslims and Sunnis, who dominated Hussein’s
inner circle, and bring stability to the country as U.S. troops
prepare to exit at the end of the year.

Hussein’s Execution

Talabani is against the death penalty on principle and has
never signed off on an execution, including the December 2006
hanging of Hussein, which embarrassed the Iraqi government when
a video emerged showing the former president being taunted at
the gallows by Shiites. Under the constitution, death sentences
must be ratified by the president, though an act of parliament
or a veto by a vice president can override the presidential
decision.

An appeal against his father’s death sentence was filed
within the legal period of 30 days after he was condemned to
die, and no one knows where the process stands, Ziad Aziz said.

The court ruling came as Iraqi leaders competed to form a
new government after March’s inconclusive elections, and was
politically motivated, the son added. Presiding Judge Mahmoud
Saleh al-Hassan ran unsuccessfully for parliament as part of al-
Maliki’s coalition, saying he would humiliate Baathist tyrants.

“The entire world is against the implementation of
execution. This is about revenge, not justice,” said Ziad Aziz,
44. “They’ve implicated my father in everything, in every
single case you can imagine. He’s been apportioned blame for
issues that never even fell within the realm of his
responsibilities.”

Prison Sentences

Before Aziz received the death penalty, he had been
sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the execution of
42 merchants and a further seven for helping to plan the forced
displacement of Kurds from northeastern Iraq. He was acquitted
of charges he had a role in the killing of Shiite protesters.

Aziz, a Christian from Mosul, met Hussein in the 1950s when
they were activists for the then-banned Baath party and rose
through the ranks when it came to power in 1968. When the U.S.
issued a deck of cards to portray the most-wanted regime leaders
after the 2003 invasion, Aziz was the eight of spades.

Ziad Aziz said he last saw his father on April 24, 2003,
the day he surrendered to U.S. forces. Tariq Aziz was held in a
U.S.-run prison before being handed over to Iraqi authorities in
July as part of the Obama administration’s phased pullout of
American forces.

The younger Aziz said al-Maliki’s new government should
show mercy toward his father, citing the case of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who has cancer and was returned to Libya on
compassionate grounds in 2009 after being imprisoned in Scotland
for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie.